hey york-
o-fficial studio guy here..btw- mackie 824 monitors yesterday!
there's a ton of great free/shareware/demos at
www.hitsquad.com/smm
there, you'll find a free copy of pro tools LE, a great sequencer
IF you have the computing power for it. check the minimums.
for a decent free audio recorder/editor-
http://audacity.sourceforge.net i've heard good things about it.
you can also DL the free 8 track version of sony acid
at
www.acidplanet.com . you'll find 5-6 free sample loops
w/ each package in the library, plus an "8pack" song file
that changes each week. it's a great way to become aquainted.
as far as guitar software goes, cakewalk makes a cut down version
of Sonar, guitar tracks pro-
http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/Gui...ro/default.asp
it'll run you a little over $200, check around.
it has efx, amplitube amp sim software bundled, so it's a good bargin.
by comparison, starting w/ Sonar 5 producer will run you around $799.
thank god i've been maintaining my upgrades since cakewalk 5.
one of the hottest pieces of guitar software is Guitar Rig 2-
http://www.native-instruments.com/in...?guitarrig2_us
i don't recommend a soundcard (damned noisy things), go
USB2 connector. tascam, roland, m-audio all make good ones.
i upgraded recently from the rol.ua-100, to the 24bit tascam US-122.
does that help?
kirk